John writes:
San Martin de los Andes proved to be a fabulous stop, so many thanks to Daniel Pi, the Finca Ambrosia wine maker, for his recommendation.
Post yesterday’s blog, we raided the local farmacia for even more drugs for me and headed to the bars beside Laguna Lacar for an unnerving and coincidental meeting with Frankie’s better looking twin at the table behind us. Sadly Frankie felt a little upstaged and took it badly, not just the looks, but his twin was from Barnsley and now lived in Colorado, which seemed much more upwardly mobile than a Glaswegian living in Guatemala!
Glasgow Thug
Barnsley Gentleman
After an excellent Italian dinner with some interesting Patagonian chardonnay and cabernet franc, I headed off to bed and left the heavy drinkers to crawl their way home. Fortunately stamina, age or discretion got the better of Chris, Mike, Craig and Frankie so 1 drink later, bypassing the 2 (!!!) Irish bars, they made it back to Hosteria Las Lucarnes. Mike’s ‘basic’ description in last night’s blog was further detailed this morning with his single bed being like ‘sleeping on a spring board’ – very narrow and rock hard!
Our drive today was only 200kms along the Seven Lakes Road through the Valle del arroyo Pil Pil to San Carlos de Bariloche and we assumed would only take us an easy 3 hour drive or so. Little did we know that it would be 5 hours until our arrival although got a hint as we had made it 50kms in the first 2 hours with so many stops for photographs and to admire the views.
We have been in deserts of various forms since Quito 4 1/2 weeks ago which perhaps made today even more impactful. Every one of us has been bowled over by this part of Argentina and words can’t explain but here are a range of views to give a flavour.
Truly spectacular and we had many Kodak moments but sadly too early for our new team member Lois who joins tomorrow and is a former director of Kodak!!
After a false stop in Villa la Angostura looking for a non existent lunch, we made our appropriately named accommodation Gran Hotel Panamericano in San Carlos de Bariloche in early afternoon. Not quite what we expected being further out of town and close to, but not on the lakeside. Looks a bit like a 1970s Turnberry Hotel but still has great bedroom views and the basics we require.
At the end of most of our days we have said ‘What a day’ or ‘What a drive’ – it’s becoming repetitive. However again today we had the most stunningly spectacular drive. Thousands of pictures have been taken and deleted, with every corner or brow producing an even more superlative view. The team consensus is the Seven Lakes Road beats the Italian Lakes and Switzerland put together!!!
Tomorrow it’s time to explore Bariloche and surrounds, including some Finca Ambrosia distributor visits for me, and then await the arrival of Lois to make up our final team of six to Ushuaia.
Our America’s Challenge Drive 